


Hold Your Hand

by InsaneTrollLogic



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Asexual Character, Asexuality, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-19
Updated: 2016-01-19
Packaged: 2018-05-14 21:43:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5759938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsaneTrollLogic/pseuds/InsaneTrollLogic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fun story about his superpowers. </p><p>Barry vibrates when he’s uncomfortable.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hold Your Hand

Barry Allen falls in love when he’s nine years old. Her name is Iris and she steps between him and the boys who’d chased him down the street. She knocks the bigger boy down, and the second balks at the thought of hitting a girl. Barry watches from the ground, his eyes wide as the bullies retreat. Their parting taunts don’t even reach his ears. All he can see is the girl offering him a hand.

He takes it and lets her haul him up to his feet. Barry feels his face break into a smile. The girl hasn’t let go of his hand yet, and he thinks that if he could hold on forever, he’d be happy.

* * *

 

His high school girlfriend is named Becky Cooper. She’s a year older than him, but repeating a grade. She makes it a point to sit next to him during Chemistry class when they’re assigning lab partners. It’s still another year before he can sign up for AP  science courses.

He’s had worse lab partners than Becky. She clearly picked him because she wants to pass and her face lights up when they manage something as simple as a pH test. She winds up at their house after school to work on projects as Iris glowers at them both.

Barry’s completely taken by surprise when she kisses him.

They date for the rest of the semester. Becky initiates ( _dictates_ , Iris says scathingly, _don’t pretend like you’re comfortable with all of this_ ) every act of intimacy and Barry goes along for the ride. He likes the quiet moments best, explaining pieces of chemistry as he helps Becky through the trickier parts of the class.

Becky breaks up with him the week before Christmas, kissing him softly on the cheek as she comments, “Barry, I like you, but you’re clearly not into this. Ever think you might be gay?”

( _What a bitch_ , Iris says when Barry tells her about the speech. _You’re lucky to be rid of her._ Then she frowns and adds, _And if she’s right, that’s okay too. It was still a shitty way to break up with you. You’re not are you?_

Barry’s never stopped being love with Iris so he blushes and shakes his head. _I don’t think so._ )

Becky calls him over the holiday to let him know she pulled a B in the class. Barry tells her he’s proud of her.

* * *

 

He forgets about dating in college.

No one tells him that’s weird.

* * *

With Joe’s connections, he gets a job at the CCPD after he finishes his master’s work. And he’s lucky he has that connection because a dad in prison is a giant red flag on his background check.

It helps that Barry’s _good_ at his job. It’s a lot easier to break down a crime scene than it is to break down a person’s motivations. He sees the results of a lot of violence, domestic abuses. Crimes of passion.

His first homicide scene involves a wife who’d found her husband in bed with a neighbor.

He overhears one of the onlookers say, “Don’t know what I would have done in her place.”

Barry nearly spins around to reply, _How about not murder your spouse?_ And while he was at it, the husband wasn’t blameless. _Don’t sleep around. It’s not that hard._

It’s not the only bedroom murder he sees that first year. Half the paranormal cases he researches make more sense.

* * *

The lightning changes him. Makes him the impossible. Gives him the tools to help his dad. It also steals nine months from his life.

Until he sees Iris kissing the Pretty Boy Detective, he thinks it might have been worth it.

* * *

Barry should have spoken up sooner.

He knows he should have spoken up sooner, but Iris was his best friend. He went to the movies with her, treated her to coffee, kicked her ass at bowling and walked arm in arm through cold windy mornings. It was always... enough. Asking for more? She hadn’t seriously dated anyone before, and Barry was always half-convinced that was because she’d been dating _him_ for years.

Joe wonders why he never said anything. For Barry, it’s literally that it never occurred to him to ask.

* * *

So he runs instead.

The Flash fills up the spaces in his life that used to be empty. Caitlin accuses him of not having a life, but this _is_ his life. Even when it hurts, he loves it. Loves all of them. His new family. He talks tech with Cisco and plays chess with Dr. Wells.

He even lets Caitlin drag him out with the prospect of getting back into the dating game.

He likes Linda from the first moment he sees her. He’s not always good at reading romantic situations, and it’s a refreshing change to have someone so clearly outline what they want. She’s smart, funny and he can absolutely see himself taking that next step, falling in love piece by piece.

And if he takes Cisco’s calls during the middle of a date, if he dashes off to a burning building while Linda’s in the restroom, that’s his business.

Cisco apologies for being a cockblock, but the thought had never really passed Barry’s mind.

* * *

Fun story about his superpowers.

Barry vibrates when he’s uncomfortable.

* * *

It takes a break up, time travel and a telepathic gorilla before he gets up his nerve to talk to Caitlin. Through the last year she’s become one of his best friends, but she’s also still his doctor. He’d have talked to Cisco first, but he’s watched the other guy crushing on enough people to suspect he wouldn’t understand.

Caitlin’s first question is if this was a side-effect of the particle accelerator explosion. She starts on a lecture about libido in recovering coma patients. Barry clenches his hands so hard they start vibrating before he forces himself to interrupt. “Not the lightning, Cait. Just me.”

“Oh,” Caitlin falters. “That just sounds like you’re asexual.”

“Asexual,” Barry repeats. He has to steady himself against the workstation in relief. “There’s a word for it.”

“There’s a whole spectrum,” Caitlin says, her voice a little more hesitant. “I can… get you some information. I’m not great with the nuance.”

“That’d be great,” Barry says. “Thank you.”

Caitlin smiles, moving out of the room. She stops after a moment, turning back to look at him. “Barry? I hope I’m not out of line asking, but I thought… I mean you and Iris. Not to mention Linda.”

Barry feels a blush creeping up his cheeks. “You know when you’re a little kid. How you have this friend. One you like more than anyone else in the world. And all that you want is to, I don’t know, give them a flower so that they smile at you?”

“Yeah,” Caitlin says. “Love’s like that.”

“Love I understand.” Barry shrugs. “I just never figured out how sex was supposed to fit in.”

Barry gives her a tight smile and then bolts out of the room.

* * *

Things don’t change.

Barry runs. Barry fights. Barry occasionally attempts to date. Sometimes it goes well. Sometimes it doesn’t. And every once in a while, on the nights when he’s been beaten, when he’s at his lowest, licking his wounds in the depth of S.T.A.R. labs…

Every once in a while he wakes up to Iris holding his hand.

And everything feels a little bit easier.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[podfic of] Hold Your Hand](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10825866) by [luvtheheaven](https://archiveofourown.org/users/luvtheheaven/pseuds/luvtheheaven)




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